Despite the Vietnam War ending 35 years ago the US chemical bombardment of Vietnam is still claiming victims. More than 3 million Vietnamese have suffered the effects of Agent Orange – the nickname given to dioxin rich herbicides sprayed by the US military over large parts of central and southern Vietnam.

While the ALP and the Liberal-National Coalition put on grand theatrics on how different they are from each other (usually with no actual basis) when it comes to foreign policy neither party seems willing to display any difference.

On July 1, US President Barack Obama signed into law a new bill that imposes unilateral US sanctions targeting foreign companies that sell petroleum products to Iran. On July 26, the European Union followed suit. New EU sanctions include a ban on the sale of equipment and services to Iran’s energy sector.

Less than a week after the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on June 9, the Australia government is planning its own unilateral punitive measures.

London – How do wars begin? With a “master illusion”, according to Ralph McGehee, one of the CIA’s pioneers in “black propaganda”, known today as “news management”. In 1983, he described to me how the CIA had faked an “incident” that became the “conclusive proof of North Vietnam’s aggression”.

June has been the deadliest month ever for Australian troops occupying Afghanistan. On June 7, Sapper Jacob Moerland, 21, and Sapper Darren Smith, 25, from Brisbane-based 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment, were killed by an improvised explosive device and another soldier was shot and wounded in the arm on June 16.

Thirty-five years ago the monstrous US (and Australian) war against the people of Vietnam finally came to an end. On April 30, 1975, Vietnamese forces entered Saigon.

The US military has retreated from a base in Afghanistan’s remote Korengal Valley after spending over four years trying to hold the area.

The Good Soldiers
By David Finkel
Scribe Publications (2009),
287 pages (pb), $35.00

Green Zone
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Written by Brian Helgeland
(based on the book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran)
Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, and Brendan Gleeson
Runtime: 115 minutes

Few events in world politics in recent times could be considered more perverse or absurd than the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama. Just prior to the award presentation, his administration announced it would undertake a new military offensive in Afghanistan with a “surge” of an additional 30,000 troops.

Amsterdam – There is growing tension between Venezuela and the Netherlands over the US use of airfields on the Dutch Caribbean islands Curacao and Aruba for aggression against Venezuela. These small islands, some 80km off the Venezuelan coast, are part of the Caribbean segment of the former Dutch colonial empire and still part of the Netherlands.

Avatar
Written & directed by James Cameron
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana & Stephen Lang
Runtime: 162 minutes
In cinemas now

With all attention on Afghanistan as violence and US troop commitment there surges, the occupation in Iraq has received less attention in recent months than it has since the invasion of Iraq took place in March 2003.

“Don’t make the mistake, President Obama, of ordering an overt aggression against Venezuela utilising Colombia … We are ready for anything, and Venezuela will never, never be a Yankee colony again”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated on November 8, in the wake of the Obama administration’s signing on October 30 of a 10-year accord with Colombia for a joint military build-up.

For the past few years, private military contractors have out numbered US troops in Afghanistan despite a doubling in the size of the US occupation under the Obama administration. There were more contractors than US troops in Iraq a year ago, but the number of contractors dropped slightly this year to 120,000 – equal to the number of US troops.

Philadelphia – The October 13 the New York Times ran a news story headlined “Door Opens to Health Claims Tied to Agent Orange”, which was sure to be good news to many American veterans of the Indochina War.

Auburndale, Massachusetts – I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize.

A special session of the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on October 16 voted for a resolution calling for the adoption of the “Goldstone report” on Israel’s December-January war on Gaza.

October 7 marks eight years since the US-led coalition of imperialist powers and their client states invaded Afghanistan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed victory in the wake of US President Barak Obama’s first speech to the United Nations General Assembly and the September 22 meeting in New York between Netanyahu, Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it”, explained Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez on August 16 in response to plans to increase numbers of US bases around his country, which has confirmed the continuation of US threats of aggression from the Bush to the Obama administrations.

On September 15, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) released a report it commissioned into Israel’s war on Gaza in December-January, during which some 1400 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military. Thirteen Israelis also died, including four civilians.

The inauguration of re-elected Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa in the nation’s capital Quito on August 10 became a focal point for a discussion about the rising tensions in South America between the growing number of elected left-wing governments on the continent and moves by Washington to increase the number of its military bases in Colombia, which is ruled by the right-wing gov

[The following article is based on a speech given on behalf of the war veterans group Stand Fast at a public meeting in Rockhampton on July 10 as part of the Peace Convergence protests against the bi-annual joint Australian and US Talisman Sabre war rehearsals that occur in and around environmentally and culturally sensitive Shoalwater Bay.